Closeness
by ExceptionalyOrdinary
Summary: Prologue to my first fic, Curiosity. OneShot.


**A/N: So I wanted to write a short prologue to my first fic, Curiosity, for quite some time now but never got around to do that. (Better late than never, I suppose.)**

 **OneShot, told from Bass' first person POV.**

 **Enjoy :)**

 **Closeness**

* * *

Darkness.

Before I could even digest what happened, I found myself wandering in the most forgotten parts of it.

The most quiet parts of it;

The kind that forced my mind to go over the same painful memories over and over again, each time I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into a place that I wasn't even sure had a way out of.

Yet, I let myself sink.

I had no other choice, basically.

I was betrayed, abandoned, left all alone, ordered to be deleted by the human I trusted the most; my creator.

It all happened so fast that at first I couldn't believe it was real. In a single moment, I lost everything; my home, my duty, my bond, myself.

Why? How?

I just had so many unanswered questions.. They were piling up every day, each time a new one popped into my mind, it added to the weight of the rest, making it almost impossible to keep myself calm about the whole thing.

It didn't help that all I had around me was basically nothing.

No one to talk to. Nothing to distract me.

And to top it all off, I had this huge scar on my chest; An ironic, new symbol to remind me every time I looked down that I was a damn fool to ever trust anyone other than myself.

Confusion slowly turned into self doubt, which turned into frustration, which quickly turned into anger.

I had to channel all of these negative feelings out of me somehow. I knew deep down that I didn't deserve any of this.

Then, one day, only a month after what happened, a NetNavi challenged me to a fight.

He was a tough one - A level of strength that I haven't met before. The battle was long, but I managed to triumph in the end.

I won't forget the feeling I had when I did; I felt like I finally found my reason. A way out of this never ending spiral of pathetic self-pity.

I never had a proper rival before; somehow all of the security-type NetNavis that I fought against were incredibly weak, even when I still had those pathetic limiters on me, so I never got to test my actual abilities in battle.

After this, I could finally realize what I'm truly capable of.

And I finally knew what I had to do.

I needed to get stronger; strong enough to show them - The humans who thought they could easily get rid of me, the same ones who put me into this whole mess, that trying to kill me was a bad idea.

They were all going to regret it.

When I finally decided on my new purpose, my head felt cleaner, the weight on my shoulders felt lighter, and I could finally find a way to distract myself from all of the memories.

I started on a quest for power; every NetNavi who was unfortunate enough to run into me, was quickly defeated, and their abilities were immediately copied using my Get-Ability program.

Winning and gaining new power was addictive. I never felt like it was enough. I had to get far more stronger in order to have my revenge and I knew that I deserved that more than anyone.

As time passed, I came to be known as 'UnderNet's most fearsome NetNavi'.

I liked that.

That name meant that only the strongest will dare to face me, and I wouldn't have to waste my time on pathetic weaklings.

But as time continued to pass, I noticed that name was perhaps _too_ effective; most NetNavis who recognized me simply ran away in fear of immediate deletion, leaving me with no actual worthy rivals to fight against.

And things kept that way for the longest time.

I was simply too strong, and those who actually dared to challenge me were in way over their heads.

Then, I met them;

The dumbest-looking, yet bravest NetNavi I've ever met, MegaMan and his NetOP, Lan Hikari.

The only reason they went against me was because I was rumored as the strongest, and not even when seeing my actual powers did their determination falter.

I sensed something about them. I sensed potential.

Potential to be my worthy opponent, finally.

The more we fought, the more I was certain; MegaMan was destined to be my rival. Winning against him and stealing his powers will finally make me strong enough to start my revenge. It was like hitting two birds with one stone.

Soon, no one will be able to stop me.

But something that I wasn't expecting happened;

Somewhere along the way I noticed his bond with his NetOP was not an ordinary one.

In my already 10 years of wandering around the UnderNet, I've pretty much seen it all; Independent Navis who wished they had a NetOP to fill their life with a purpose, NetOPs who abused their NetNavis, NetOPs who abandoned their NetNavis after losing to me, Various humans who tried to talk to me and convince me to join their side for their own selfish personal gain, and other fools who thought they could defeat me and failed.

But those two were different.

Their bond was based on complete mutual trust and honor, on giving it all, sacrificing themselves for one another if they needed to, even.

It was pure.

I didn't understand that.

My quest for power was derived from anger and that worked just fine for me until now.

But their strength seemed to come from somewhere far different.

When I asked about it, I was given an even more confusing answer; it was friendship, the strength and trust of their loved-ones that kept pushing them forward.

And soon after, I was defeated.

How?

How can something so stupid, so pathetic, so weak and fragile, still make them this strong?

It didn't make any sense.

And yet, I was interested.

When I realized that, it sickened me. I felt like I was betraying everything that I stood for, everything that I am. That all of my long quest for power, my route for revenge that I've planned so carefully was suddenly crumbling before my eyes, throwing me back into square one, as if I've made no progress at all.

But somehow, when I decided to give it a try and combine both of our powers, I felt the strongest I've ever did.

I felt their trust and faith, I saw the image of their friends through their eyes, their special loved ones.

A part of me wanted to puke. To slap myself for going soft, showing weakness, basically navigating myself into making the same mistake I've made in the past.

But a part of me also dared to crave that closeness with someone as well.

This innocence.

Could it be that after all of this time, after all that had happened, somehow, this naive side of me managed to survive? This subtle hope for acceptance, a new bond even..?

...

Could I.. one day find..?

END


End file.
